Middle Eastern Realities

Details of “Einstein” Cyber Shield Disclosed by White House

The Obama administration lifted the veil Tuesday on a highly-secretive set of policies to defend the U.S. from cyber attacks.

It was an open secret that the National Security Agency was bolstering a Homeland Security program to detect and respond to cyber attacks on government systems, but a summary of that program declassified Tuesday provides more details of NSA’s role in a Homeland program known as Einstein.

The current version of the program is widely seen as providing meager protection against attack, but a new version being built will be more robust–largely because it’s rooted in NSA technology. The program is designed to look for indicators of cyber attacks by digging into all Internet communications, including the contents of emails, according to the declassified summary.

Homeland Security will then strip out identifying information and pass along data on new threats to NSA. It will also use threat information from NSA to better identify emerging cyber attacks.

NSA’s role is a careful balance because of the political battles that ensued over the agency’s role in domestic surveillance in the George W. Bush administration. Declassifying details of the NSA’s role, in a program initially developed during the Bush administration and continued in the Obama administration, will likely ignite new debates over privacy.

The White House’s new cyber-security chief, Howard Schmidt, announced the move to declassify the program in a speech at the RSA conference in San Francisco–his first major public address since assuming the post in January. He said addressing potential privacy concerns was one of the ten initial steps he planned to take. “We’re really paying attention, and we get it,” he said.

Charities around the country stand to gain thousands of dollars as House Dems begin to unload tainted donations from embattled Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), according to a Hotline OnCall survey.

So far, Dems who received contributions from Rangel have pledged to donate $320K to charity, according to spokespeople and news reports. Members will give back at least another $86K.

The ethically challenged Rangel, who was admonished last week by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, has donated millions over the years to Dem candidates and causes. But now that he has surrendered his Ways and Means gavel, at least temporarily, the GOP is showing no signs of letting up their attacks on Dems who accepted his campaign cash.

And there is no shortage of members who will take heat: In office since ‘71, Rangel has never won re-election with less than 89% of the vote. That means he uses the millions he raises every year goes to his colleagues facing far more difficult election campaigns.

Incumbent members of Congress seeking another term have accepted nearly $1.58M from Rangel, according to filings made with the FEC. That doesn’t include the millions Rangel has contributed to the DCCC throughout the years; as chairman of a major committee, Rangel’s dues are set at $500K this cycle, though he has given just $150K.

Though an increasing number of Dems have given contributions back to Rangel, or donated the money to charity, some members have only handed over a portion of the money they’ve received from the Ways and Means chairman. Reps. Larry Kissell (D-NC), Jerry McNerney (D-CA) and Dina Titus (D-NV) each made a show of giving back some of the money, but they have not returned all of it.

Titus, for example, has received $15K from Rangel since she began running for the House in early ‘08. Titus returned just $1K of that money — equal to the amount given this year. Aides to several members said the rest of the money had already been spent in previous elections.

Hotline OnCall is keeping track of members who have benefitted from Rangel’s generosity, either through direct donations, money from Rangel’s PAC or joint fundraising committees and who GOPers are pressuring to return the money.

Check out our full chart after the jump.
We contacted offices of each member of Congress who took money from Rangel. Those who members who remained silent did not respond to phone or email messages. We’ll continue to update this list as we hear from more members.

Notes: A spokesperson for Rep. Dan Maffei (D-NY), a former aide to Rangel, says the campaign has no plans to return the money “at this time.”

Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) returned $1K Rangel gave her campaign this year. A spokesman told a Stephens Media reporter the $14K Titus received for her ‘08 campaign is spent and gone.

Update: Rep. Zack Space (D-OH) has donated the $21K he received from Rangel to charity. Rep. Debbie Halvorson’s (D-IL) campaign will donate $16K to charity; that’s the amount she received in direct contributions. Halvorson will keep money raised at a joint fundraiser with Rangel.

Two senior administration officials said the White House is telling Democrats reconsidering their support for health care reform that they will pay the price for their original vote no matter what happens, so they should reap the political benefits of actually passing a law.

There are 59 senators and 216 House members who put themselves on the record in support of the Democratic plan for health care reform. And the way the White House and Democratic leaders see it, they have little choice but to vote for it again: Think John Kerry, and his immortal words about an Iraq war appropriations bill – that he was for it before he was against it.

“Flip-flopping is dangerous in this business,” said a senior Senate Democratic aide familiar with the strategy.

Speaking in the East Room of the White House to a room full of doctors and nurses, many in hospital scrubs and white coats, President Barack Obama did not touch on such political realities. Instead, he signaled the kind of personal involvement in pushing the legislation over the next few weeks that has been absent – at least publicly – since the upset victory of Sen. Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special election in January ended the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority and put health care in doubt.

Kicking off what he promised would be an aggressive campaign, Obama called on Congress to schedule a vote, saying the time for talking is done. And without saying the word “reconciliation,” Obama made it clear that he¹ll pass legislation with only Democratic votes if necessary.

The president laid down a timetable that would wrap up the bill before the Easter break in Congress as well as a Democratic line of attack: We’re not passing health care in a backroom deal because it has already passed in both the House and the Senate under the traditional rules. All that’s left now is the cleanup.

“The American people want to know if it’s still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future,” Obama said. “I don¹t know how this plays politically, but I know it’s right. And so I ask Congress to finish its work, and I look forward to signing this reform into law.”

Congressional leaders continued Wednesday to lock down a strategy on the process, timing and substance of the bill, aides said. The next major step will be to send the reconciliation bill to the Congressional Budget Office for a cost estimate, which could take days or even weeks to finalize.

House leaders, meanwhile, started the process of smoothing opposition to a finished package. Speaker Nancy Pelosi met Wednesday with New York Democrats in her office off the House floor to assuage concerns about the Medicaid expansion.

Since New York already subsidizes more people under Medicaid than most states, it is slated to get less federal aid than states that will be forced under the bill to expand their Medicaid rolls to people with incomes 133 percent above the poverty line – a standard New York already meets.

And quietly, behind the scenes, White House officials and leaders began the critical task of shoring up support.

The House will be asked to cast two more votes – the first on the Senate bill, which contains many elements that liberal members detest, and the second on a package of fixes. The Senate will only have to vote on the second bill through reconciliation, which allows passage with a simple majority rather than 60 votes.

As Democratic leaders urge lawmakers not to reverse their initial vote for the bill, they need to make the opposite case to the 39 House members who opposed reform on the first go around. Neera Tanden, a former health policy aide in the Obama administration, laid out the pitch in a colunm posted Wednesday on The New Republic website.

“As a matter of policy, the Senate bill is a moderate Democrat’s dream,” Tanden wrote. “House moderates have to ask themselves, apart from political considerations, how can they now vote against a bill that senators Lincoln, Lieberman, Landrieu and Bayh have all voted for?”

Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas said she doesn’t buy the argument on flip-flopping.

She is perhaps the Senate’s most endangered Democrat, facing a primary challenge from the left and, if she survives that, a general election fight from the right. She drew a distinction between her vote in favor of the Senate bill and her opposition to the reconciliation measure.

“The Senate bill will be what the House passes. Ive been supportive of the Senate bill.” The reconciliation measure “would be a whole other bill,” she said.

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, who has remained undecided on the reconciliation measure, said the argument doesn¹t hold merit because lawmakers aren¹t voting on the same bill. But, she added, lawmakers need to stop looking at the issue through such a political lens and at how their actions will play “politically.”

“You know, there is a substance here that is really important,” she said.

“I’m just so sick of this place and it all being about power and elections and not about people out there. We really need to get beyond the ‘politically’ part.”

Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said he expected the White House to argue to Democrats that they can¹t turn against their vote now.

“It sells itself,” Rockefeller said. “That is an argument I am comfortable with because it needs to be made.”

Distrust of the Senate is a problem for some House members and could make it hard for any Democrat to vote for the Senate bill unless he or she has absolute confidence that Majority Leader Harry Reid and the president will apply their changes through the reconciliation process.

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 290 times, shame on me,” said New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, an always quotable backer of the most sweeping reforms.

“Most things the Senate said they would do, they haven¹t done. There are too many deficiencies in the Senate bill for us to go on faith.”

Democrats, no matter how they vote, are expected to come under Republican attack.

House Republicans announced their own latest effort to pressure potential swing votes: “Project Code Red,” which will highlight everything the Democrats say on the issue of health care and make sure GOP candidates running against them back home respond.

And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) predicted “every election in America this fall will be a referendum on this issue.”

The political dynamics put lawmakers like New York Rep. Michael Arcuri, who voted for the initial House bill, in a bind. He expressed frustration with the Senate measure and gave every indication that he’s prepared to vote against the final package; his only caveat was that he hadn’t seen the finished language.

“What I have seen so far, I don’t like the bill,” Arcuri said. “The House bill really accomplished something. It was a tough vote, but I thought it was the right thing to do. I don’t see how the Senate bill will do the kind of things I want to do with health care. It¹s not what I¹m going to support at this point.”

Arcuri complained that the Senate bill lacks a public option, fails to dissolve an antitrust exemption for health insurance companies and won’t allow the federal government to negotiate drug prices under Medicare. He also opposes the tax on high-end health care plans.

His distaste for the Senate bill is hardly unique, but many of his House colleagues signaled a willingness to back an imperfect product over no product at all – a calculation the White House is counting on, in part, because flipping now would be politically perilous.

In the weeks ahead, undecided Democrats will be asked to weigh their objections to parts of the final package against a historic opportunity to provide health insurance to as many as 30 million Americans who currently lack it.

Connecticut Rep. Joe Courtney, an outspoken opponent of the Senate¹s tax on high-end health care plans, doesn¹t like seeing the so-called Cadillac tax in a finished bill. But he¹s not sure that this alone is reason to vote against a final product.

“Obviously, this is a generational moment,” Courtney said. “It¹s a long time ago before the forces built up again. So this is nothing to be trifled with in terms of that opportunity.”

First-term Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly acknowledged that the bill he will have to vote on represents what he called “³the last best chance, and I’m very aware of that, very, very aware of that. So I certainly feel that burden.”

“Could I have a different vote on this bill than I had on the previous one? Absolutely,” said Connolly, who voted for the initial House bill.

“It’s a different bill. Am I likely to be a changed vote? Well, we’ll have to see. I believe we need health care reform. I am passionately committed to that. I think it¹s a terrible missed opportunity to let this slip through our fingers.”

Stupak, of Michigan, sponsored a provision in the House of Representative’s health care bill that passed last fall that clearly prohibits the use of federal money to pay for abortions. That language did not make it into the Senate bill, the model Obama is using to craft the plan he is expected to send to Congress shortly.

“We’re not gonna vote for this bill with that kind of language in there,” Stupak said Thursday in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“I want to see health care, but we’re not gonna bypass some principles and belief that we feel strongly about,” he said, adding that he’s “prepared to take responsibility” for bringing down the bill.

Obama has urged the Senate to use the “reconciliation” procedure to pass the bill, which would allow Democrats to avoid a 60-vote majority needed to strike down a filibuster but would demand that lawmakers vote only on matters that impact the budget. Before that happens, however, House Democrats can prevent the legislation from reaching the Senate.

House legislation passed by a narrow 220-215 margin in November. Since then several Democrats have defected or departed, and all 254 who remain are eyeing November midterm elections and a restive electorate demanding Congress focus on jobs.

Thirty-nine Democrats voted “no” on the House bill, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will probably need some of those to switch their votes.

Rep. Dan Boren of Oklahoma, another Blue Dog Democrat opposed to the bill, has expressed concerns that tax increases on small businesses and mandates on employers will lead to more job losses.

“They’ll have to walk across my dead body if they want my vote on this issue,” Boren told Fox News on Wednesday. “This is so galvanizing in my district. I think the votes are not there and I don’t see where we get them.”

Abortion is one item that can not be tweaked in the reconciliation method. Senate Democrats have talked about a wholly separate bill for issues that can’t be “fixed” in reconciliation.

Without referencing abortion, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Fox News on Thursday that every aspect of health care has an effect on the budget.

“There is no question (health care issues) impact the budget. They impact family budgets, they impact government budgets.”

But Sebelius also told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that there will be no federal funding for abortion.

This bill does not change the status quo on abortion, she said.

Other rank-and-file Democrats say they remain wary of the legislation, not only because of its substance but because of the political peril a “yes” vote would cause back home.

“I think he has succeeded in prying open a window of opportunity, but it’s a very narrow window,” said first-term Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va. “And he and the leadership here had better clamber through that narrow window while they can.”

In a speech Wednesday at the White House, Obama called on lawmakers to end a year of legislative struggle and angry public debate and enact legislation ushering in near-universal health coverage for the first time in the country’s history.

“At stake right now is not just our ability to solve this problem, but our ability to solve any problem,” the president said. “And so I ask Congress to finish its work, and I look forward to signing this reform into law.”

Appearing before a select audience, many of them wearing white medical coats, Obama firmly rejected calls from Republicans to draft new legislation from scratch.

“I don’t see how another year of negotiations would help,” he said. “I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote.”

Underscoring the pressure, many of the “no” voters made themselves scarce Wednesday while others said they had to wait to study Obama’s plan before stating their position.

“I haven’t seen the president’s proposal so I’m going to look at it,” said first-term Rep. Scott Murphy, D-N.Y

“It’s fragile,” Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., said of the mood in the House. “It’s getting close to the election.”

Nonetheless, Pelosi vowed to answer the president’s call.

“Our families and businesses deserve reform that will create millions of jobs, strengthen Medicare, reduce our deficit and no longer deny care or drop coverage to those who need it most,” Pelosi said. “We must act now.”

Republicans said Democrats would be sorry.

“Americans do not want a trillion-dollar government takeover of health care stuffed with tax hikes, Medicare cuts and giveaways to Washington special interests,” said House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. “Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”

Obama has already made plans to try to sell the legislation directly to the public in states home to opposed or wavering lawmakers, with visits planned Monday to Philadelphia and Wednesday to St. Louis.

At its core, the legislation still is largely along the lines Obama has long sought. It would extend coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans while cracking down on insurance company practices such as denying policies on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. An insurance exchange would be created in which private companies could sell policies to consumers.

Much of the cost of the legislation, nearly $1 trillion over a decade, would be financed by cuts in future Medicare payments and higher payroll taxes on individuals earning more than $200,000 and couples more than $250,000.

At an Obama-sponsored health care summit last Thursday, Republican Rep. Paul Ryan said that double-counting Medicare savings to pay for the new program is part of an elaborate illusion to make the plan appear more affordable than it is.

In his latest changes Obama added some Republican ideas raised at last week’s bipartisan summit, including renewed efforts on changes in medical malpractice and rooting out waste and fraud from the system. But Republicans say those are issues that tinker around the edges and don’t do anything to slow the increasing price of health care

President Obama declared for the first time today that he is prepared to steamroll his troubled health reform legislation through Congress with only Democratic support, a move Republicans denounced as the “nuclear option”.

Signalling that his patience had now snapped after a year-long fight over health reform, Mr Obama laid the ground for Democrats in Congress to muscle the Bill through using a high-risk legislative maneuvre known as reconciliation, which overrides a Republican filibuster.

Although he did not use the word “reconciliation”, Mr Obama made clear that is the uncompromising route he now intends to take with his top domestic priority. White House aides and top Democrats on Capitol Hill have also stated in recent days that, in the face of unanimous Republican opposition, the legislation will now be forced through.

By using reconciliation, Democrats can get the health reform package through the Senate with a simple majority, rather than needing the Bill to pass the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a Republican filibuster. Mr Obama’s party ceded their 60-stong majority in the upper chamber after losing the late Edward Kennedy’s Massachusetts seat in January.

To meet the Obama administration’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, some researchers say, Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon.

To reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, the cost of driving would simply have to increase, according to a forthcoming report by researchers at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

The 14 percent target was set in the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget for fiscal 2010.

In their study, the researchers devised several combinations of steps that United States policymakers might take in trying to address the heat-trapping emissions by the nation’s transportation sector, which consumes 70 percent of the oil used in the United States.

Most of their models assumed an economy-wide carbon dioxide tax starting at $30 a ton in 2010 and escalating to $60 a ton in 2030. In some cases researchers also factored in tax credits for electric and hybrid vehicles, taxes on fuel or both.